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cdRoots in the USA stock some of the harder-to-find international small label releases.

Kick(re-)starter

Our recent campaign to rescue the good ship fRoots worked magnificently. Ian Anderson reports on the results, and what we’re doing next. Thank you!

You’re wonderful, you lot – the amazing folk, roots and world music community! We knew we carried a lot of goodwill out there, not just from readers whose lives have been enhanced by the music we cover but also among the many artists, record producers, upholders of traditions and promoters of events whose efforts we’ve brought to those readers’ attention. But we genuinely had no real idea just how much until we launched our emergency Save fRoots Kickstarter fundraiser back in November.

When we passed our initial cautious target – cautious because if you don’t hit it you get nothing – in 48 hours we were astounded. When, by the time it closed a few days before Christmas, we’d doubled it, we were – as the popular expression goes – gobsmacked! And, I hardly need to say, extremely grateful. Thank you all so much!

So how did we get here, and what are we planning? You all deserve to know.

fRoots had its record year in 2003/4, but then things slowly started falling apart. The proverbial writing was on the wall for the music industry in general, not just our little parallel universe, as record labels began to be hit by downloading, and touring was reduced in the fallout from ‘9/11’. The financial crash of 2007/8 hit us totally unexpectedly (in that conditions in the ‘real world’ had never previously affected us, even when Thatcher put interest rates up to 14%). Advertising, particularly for ‘world music’, fell off a cliff. By 2011, advertising income had fallen by 30%, necessitating our relocation outside London, and all staff decentralising and working remotely.

Advertising continued to drop and is now around 50% of its historic peak and 2017 was the worst year this century. In common with all other magazines, news trade sales also fell during this period, partially replaced by cheaper digital ones, though they’ve now stabilised. Subscriptions have proven more resilient, however, and single issue direct sales have actually been growing again in the past year – an encouraging trend, as are the often quoted return to physical reading matter as digital falls out of fashion.

By autumn 2017, it was clear that even with our best efforts, fRoots might not survive much longer without an injection of funds and a new model. In spite of trimming costs as far as possible (I’ve not drawn a salary myself for three years), we were still losing about £1K an issue – which, tantalisingly, barely a couple more pages of advertising would cover! So debts had continued to mount and paying overheads was becoming impossible. A short term loan from a kind supporter was all that enabled us to hold on while the Kickstarter Save fRoots campaign was launched.

We deliberately couched the campaign in terms of giving us breathing space, not to sort out the magazine’s finances completely. “We need to develop a new business model and decide what our next steps are as a publication,” ran the introduction, “but we can't devote time to doing that while we're also trying to stay on top of a busy publishing schedule and balance increasingly unbalanced costs and income. This is why we need your help… We can also plan for the current editor's handover to a new team to take over the reins…”

To our considerable surprise – illustrating the vast goodwill held by fRoots – the campaign grossed £40,650. Net of bounced pledges, Kickstarter fees, payment processing fees, project management fees, the costs of making rewards, postage and packing materials and other costs to be refunded to those who generously provided rewards, the campaign netted around £32,000. And more of you also showed your support by becoming new subscribers, a very welcome side effect of the consciousness raising.

This doesn’t fill the whole hole by any means, but it enabled us to repay that short term loan in full and clear some big outstanding debts, in particular to the dreaded wolf-toothed HMRC and to patient, hardworking staff and freelances. It gave us just that breathing and head space we had asked for. Exactly as the campaign pledged, it gives us time to create a new model.

In mid-January we held a first meeting to look at future solutions, attended by a dozen expert advisors from the folk and arts worlds, to whom more gratitude. Following on from that we are immediately moving to a new, more financially viable publishing model that will take effect next month: more details then, but basically it’ll be much bigger and better issues less often while we focus on the longer term. Existing subscriptions will be correctly adjusted accordingly. We’re urgently working on a much better and more fit-for-purpose web site and engagement with social media to drive increased revenue. And we will also be surveying readers in the near future, to make sure your voices are heard.

We will embark on a professional business consultation, the cost of which may come from funding or need more fundraising (we still have a donations page in the meantime). We will seek backers. We will also be looking for voluntary help, particularly from people with publishing and marketing experience.

But the January meeting concluded with considerable optimism that a new, better model is possible and that a transition to the next generation fRoots can be done. Roll on 40th anniversary!

So, again, thanks a million to all the backers – 718 of you! – and all the generous people and organisations who donated some truly amazing rewards for pledgers. We've listed below all those who pledged in the sections where we promised ’your name in lights’ (a few more still hadn’t replied to the post-campaign survey or simply wanted to remain anonymous). We are, honestly, humbled by this life-affirming response. Thank you!